Experiments
by Elpriede
Summary: Bled the Crow was living a normal life. That is, until his school was attacked and everyone was abducted, including himself. One experiment later, he's become a power to be reckoned with, and everyone wants use him. He has to pick sides now, but whose will he choose? My first story.
1. A Strange Dream

I never thought things would get as bad as this. I lay here, huddled in the middle of a battle of legendary proportions, bolts of chaos of every color raining down on me, an explosion occurring every second; some small, some larger, some too large to even measure correctly without first feeling the energy of the being it originated from. Truly, chaos, like never before has been seen before, was happening now, right in the middle of one of the most peaceful cities as well.

A bolt of chaos energy hit just beside the barrier that separated me from the mayhem outside, exploding upon impact, hitting the energy wall, but not causing any lingering damage to it. I was on one knee, my head down, eyes closed, breathing softly, but deeply, a white Chaos Emerald clutched close to my chest, simply wondering why when everything had suddenly gotten so out of control, why everybody suddenly felt the need to destroy everything within sight...

Another spear of energy hit my little dome of peace, a dull sound against my aching head, feeling as if several long nails were being hammer into my skull, and then reverberating around my brain. I grimaced, it was almost unbearable. The Chaos Emerald grew hotter in my hand, making me crack my eyes open in curiosity. It was glowing, brightly, as if in response to my pain. The bolts seemed to come quicker now, many Mobians seeming to target me for whatever reason or another.

I lifted my head, squinting my bloodshot eyes to peer through the transparent shield, into outside world, trying to evaluate my surroundings. It was difficult, smoke, dust, and debris blocked my vision in almost every direction. I turned in the slightly cramped space, trying to make out what was currently happening in the outside world. I wondered off-hand what the others were doing right now—probably fighting, not hiding like a coward in some bubble. Would they consider me a coward? Shadow would ... I wasn't made for fighting of this magnitude, yet the very cause of this fight chose me.

I looked up into the sky, and coincidentally, there was a small hole in the smoke and dust, leaving me a clear view of the cause of my troubles. The Master Emerald, a source of infinite Chaos energy, controller of the legendary Chaos Emeralds, exactly like the one currently in my hand. It was glowing brightly, a shining beacon in the midst of the battle, Mobians of all kinds battling for control of this object, but of course, they weren't in the rate state of mind; controlled by one fat, bald, insane mustached man.

Was he in this fight now? I doubted that he was, but that thought didn't honestly matter much in my current position. The explosions were growing in frequency, not a second going by without multiple of them occurring around me, and they were growing in power. Apparently, many of the mind controlled Mobians were targeting me, meaning Eggman had some sort of sight into the fight, or someone else on the field was commanding them. Both were equally possible, but again, it didn't matter in foresight.

I shook off the thought, focusing directly on the Master Emerald once again. My troubles started with that ugly fat man, and that oversized green rock. I felt the special connection between myself and it, the one forged when Eggman decided to do experiments with me and it, trying to create a being that could harness the power of the Master Emerald directly. In simple words, he had succeeded, and what I was now a product of that success. However, there was something wrong now.

I couldn't feel it anymore, that presence that had been with me throughout my adventures with the Freedom Fighters and across the world. Something ancient, powerful, all-knowing, I knew it instantly knew who exactly I was as soon as the bond between us was forged. However, it only still granted me its energy only when I needed it, which is what troubled me now. I could not feel its presence anymore; I could not even feel its energy. It had abandoned me, which scared me. I needed it, my life was bound directly to it, as Eggman stated:

Flashback ...

"Oh-ho-ho-ho! What a MAGNIFICIENT success! You, boy, have given me newfound data, but it is so strange that such a simple crow could be the correct vessel for such an experiment. Not even Sonic the Hedgehog or Shadow the Hedgehog could contain so much power." Despite his previous laughter, Eggman walked away from the monitor he was standing in front of before, observing the data going by faster than I could read. He turned in my direction, and walked directly in front of me, leaning down to scrutinize every detail on me. "What makes you so different?" He asked quietly, just loud enough for me to hear, purposefully.

I spat at him, shaking, shivering in my chains. I was on my knees, blood trickling down my arms from my cut wrists, the shackles binding them, lifting them above my head towards the ceiling too tight, and built to slice into the prisoner's wrist should they move around too much. I found this out the hard way. My body was covered in bruises from being disobedient to the fat man in the black and red jumpsuit, my original pristine white body now unrecognizable. It seemed dull, lifeless, dirt caking the fur and feathers. I was filthy, but I didn't much care. I was numb to the pain at this point; the experiments he performed upon me putting such a large strain on my mental and physical conditions. It would be so much easier to just give in, to let go, but that would be too simple. It isn't like he would let me go anyways.

I answered him, despite the circumstances. "Because the Master Emerald had chosen me," I replied bitterly. I had no idea if this was true or not, but it was the only answer that my simple scatterbrained mind could come up with. If the greatest heroes of Mobius couldn't handle it, why could I? It had to be the Master Emerald had chosen me, but I wasn't sure why. I was vaguely aware of its presence in my mind, it felt ancient, old, indescribable, and unfathomable. Though it didn't say anything directly, thoughts that were not my own swirled within my conscious, knowledge that wasn't my own embedding itself within me. Not just that, but I felt more alive, energy pulsing through my body, energy that I didn't know how to control, so I didn't try to—I simply was there, wondering if I should attempt to use it, and even if I did, what would I do? Try to break the chains holding me captive? I wasn't strong enough before, what would be the difference now?

I was broken out of my thoughts though by raucous laughter coming from Dr. Eggman. Apparently I was thinking much faster as well, because it seemed as if he had been frozen before now. At least, that had to be the reason. He eyed me closely still, and I met his eyes, blue eyes meeting those infernal glasses (goggles?) he always wore. "So, still have a bit of an attitude, hm? We can always fix that later, but for now, I want to test the extent of your new abilities that I'm sure the Master Emerald has bestowed upon you." He went over to his giant computer of multiple monitors with a small keyboard in front of hit. He hit a few keys in a calculated order, K-3-99-D. How did I know that? The thoughts just entered my mind, I assumed it had something to do with the Master Emerald, I could feel its own conscious shifting within mine.

I was surprised when the metal shackles around my wrists suddenly came loose, and I fell directly to the floor, my forehead smacking it, my blood falling from my arms onto the stainless tiles. My head raged in pain, the headache growing stronger suddenly. Out of the corner of my eye, however, I could see the Master Emerald glow a little brighter, obviously a response to my heightened pain. I heard heavy footsteps suddenly coming towards me, and somehow knew it was a robot; orange, red glowing eyes, shiny, 5 feet tall, obviously new.

"Take him to the Simulation Hangar," Eggman ordered. The robot responded with a few beeps. 'Yes, sir.' I was confused how I knew what it said, but the ache in my head reached a peak. It came to stand next to me and bent over, and suddenly I felt an enormous flash of energy surge through my body, more than anything I had ever felt before. I lost control of my body, my vision suddenly darkened, and that ancient presence enveloped my entire body. It had taken control; I only knew that my body was in motion. When I came to once more, I was standing, my fists clenched, on my hands and knees, panting for air. When I looked around, the robot was in pieces, the stainless steel mangled and torn apart, the inner workings strewn across the floor, which was burned, a large black stain that stood apart from the rest of the clean blue tile. I felt tired, weak then, and the Master Emerald retreated in my mind back to its original position, just barely noticeable, but obviously there. The head of the robot rolled over towards me, and I slowly lifted my hand up, putting a finger out to stop it in its track.

When I finally lifted my head, I saw Eggman standing there stock-still, a heavy frown on his face, his eyes visibly narrowed behind his glasses at me. He strode forward, his long legs taking him to the pile of scrap metal that used to be a functional robot. I got up to my feet slowly, still feeling exhausted, but I turned to follow him. He didn't seem to be the least bit concerned that I was standing. He inspected it, looked at me, then the infernal robot again, and then back at me, appearing deeply surprised.

"How did you do that?" He asked simply, though arched an eyebrow at the confused expression that came onto my face, my beak twitching in the hint of a frown.

"Do what?" I shot back.

He pointed the mangled robot. "That, you threw a Chaos Spear at it in front of my eyes. I saw your eyes change to green, similar to the color of the Master Emerald. You are not known for using any Chaos abilities, especially from what your records have told me. How did you do it?"

I shrugged lightly. "I don't know," I answered semi-truthfully. I don't know what I actually did, but I did know that it had something to do with the green rock.

He frowned even deeper. "Very well," he said briskly, striding up to me and taking my arm. He looked it over before turning me towards the doorway, pushing me towards it. "Either way, we're going to the Simulation Hangar. Do not act up, little bird, or I'll destroy that emerald you're now bonded to. If it is destroyed, it is safe to assume that it will kill you as well." That gave me something to think about alright.

End of flashback

Was the Master Emerald damaged? Maybe that was why I couldn't feel it anymore, perhaps it could not help me now because of the battle. Maybe it was because of all the Chaos energy swarming around me. But, then, a thought struck me, and I looked at the barrier I was surrounded it truly now; it was green, the same shade as the Master Emerald. I didn't even stop to consider why it was there in the first place, I don't remember creating it. I don't remember much of anything in this fight, which confuses me. Did it take control again? Maybe this shield was blocking it from connecting to me, but then, another thought struck me. I looked down at the Chaos Emerald I had held close to me. Was this the reason I couldn't connect to the large glowing green rock? Maybe it was...

I shifted around in the small green dome, scanning the outside with completely open eyes now. The dull thuds were even stronger now, and I desperately searched the outside. If I was to get rid of this thing, then I would need to get it somewhere safe. But, then, the green dome suddenly shattered, and the noise became deafening. I gasped turning around to see something dreadful; a boulder of massed Chaos energy hurtling straight at me. There was no way I could survive something of its magnitude. I could only stare as it got closer, but suddenly, just as it was about to hit me, everything went dark, my vision disappearing. I felt suspended in the air; I could tell my eyes were closed, however. It felt like I was falling...

My eyes flew open, and I sat up in my bed with a screech. My head whirled about, my eyes darting between different places before I realized where I was. I looked down, a soft, warm blanket draped over my legs still, bunched halfway up my stomach. Was it all a dream? If it was, why did it feel, and for that matter, look so real? My head was still fuzzy with sleep, especially with these strange thoughts running through my head. I looked to the side, where my nightstand is; brown oak wood with two doors. I then noticed how dark it was in the room, though because I was a bird I could see perfectly fine still. I reached out clumsily, flicking the lamp resting on the nightstand, and then looked at the clock. 6:03 AM, Tuesday. I had school in roughly 42 minutes.

I stretched my arms out then, turning my head forward and looked them up and down; they were normal, skinny like a lot of Mobians, no scars in sight. They did, however, have sports tape wrapped around them, covering the fur and skin beneath, wrapped around my hands, wrist, and traveling up my arm to my elbow on my left, and going up my arm, past the elbow, and halfway up my bicep. I apparently forgot to take it off before going to bed. I grabbed the comforter, pulling it over to reveal my legs. They were skinny, like almost everyone else, as per Mobian biology. White socks with gray over the heel and toe area, sports tape going under it and wrapping around my heel and ankle, going up and ending just under my knee, both legs almost equal, if there was a difference, it was miniscule. What the hell was I doing before that required so much tape? I couldn't remember.

I swung my legs over the bed, hopping off the bed to stand up straight. I walked over to my door, where a large body-scale mirror was hung from. There stood before me a bird, a crow to be more exact, one with snowy white fur and large, equally white, reflective, pointed eyes. However, as he suddenly noticed, his left eye was different now. Instead of the blue eyes he was born with, the iris was now green. However, despite that, I flicked my eyes to my torso, somehow unsurprised by the change in color, as it just seemed to confirm my previous suspicions. A large clump of black fur had sprouted from my chest as I grew up, covering much of it and reaching down to the beginning of my navel. My arms were flecked with black, which contrasted greatly with my white main body color. I flicked my eyes back up to my head. Messy quills came from the back of my end, thin, and plenty of them, the tips colored black. One of the quills stood out in particular, however. The rest were slicked back, but this was curved forward, and was long, partially covering the now emerald colored eye. Wait, emerald?

I finally took in the color of my eye, and my mouth opened in shock. I stepped back from the mirror, looking away from it and turning around. No, no, that can't be real. I moved towards the window, dodging the junk left on my bedroom floor, and clear as day, I could still see the green iris staring back at me. Did that mean what I saw in the dream wasn't actually a dream? Was it a glimpse into the future, or something else entirely? I didn't know what to think anymore; I simply unlatched my window and opened it up, sticking my head outside to gaze around. The city streets were busy; Mobians of all species and colors walking down the sidewalk, cars speeding down the roads. I sighed; at least the outside world was normal.

I pulled my head back indoors and closed the window, latching it closed once more, effectively locking it. I reached my hands up, rubbing it over my face and beak. Today was too weird for me. I stepped back and turned around, walking to the foot of my bed and stooping down to grab my shoes; blue converses, simple, yet seemingly elegant to my eyes. I slipped my feet into them, not bothering to change my socks, and tied them tight. I stood back up, a hand on my forehead as I walked to the door, turned the doorknob, opening the door and stepping out into the hallway. I walked down it, passing the open door of my mom's room. I peeked inside it; empty. Of course, she was probably at work by now, she had to get it up earlier than me.

My mind whirled still, though. What exactly was happening? All of these questions floating inside of my head and meshing into that one big question. I shook my head, my hand dropping to my side as I stepped into the living room. I had to get my mind off of things, or at least pretend things were still normal. I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, pulling out a jug of orange juice and shutting it. I set it on the counter, reaching up to the cupboard over it and opened it, pulling out a small cup. I uncapped the jug and poured some of the liquid in it into the cup, reclosing it and placing it back in the fridge.

I downed my drink in a few seconds, sighing in contentment of the moment at the taste. I walked back out the kitchen, placing the cup in the sink as I went by, and back to my room. It felt weird to be in here now after what I recently discovered, but I got over it. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand, pulling it from its charger. I hit the power button and the screen came on—it was a rectangular smartphone, a little larger than average. I typed in my password; 3-5-66-8-2, and it unlocked, bringing me to the home screen. Three circles covered the top of the main screen, just under a black bar with a bunch of notifications of apps and system things. The largest one to the left had the time in bold white letters with an almost black background, the top of it being a dark blue, the next one over had the weather. It read 56 degrees, cloudy, with a little picture of a sun partially covered by a cloud to demonstrate. The next one over was small, showing a circle with a smaller circle's border on the inside, with a 100% in the center.

Fully charged, that was good. I checked my messages—nothing new. I had no idea why I even bothered; it wasn't like anyone ever texted me except for my mother. No one ever called except for her either, not even my friends, though they obviously had my number. It put a slightly bitter taste in my mouth, but I swallowed it down, getting over it quickly. I clicked the power button and the screen turned off, leaving a black reflective surface. Rolling my eyes, I put it down, leaning over, stretching my arm to grab my scarf. It was black colored, with little strings from the end. I was known for wearing a scarf at my school. I tied it around my neck quickly, grabbing my phone and slipping it into the knot securely. I hardly noticed the weight anymore, not like it was really heavy in the first place.

At last, I grabbed my backpack and slung one of the straps over my shoulder. It was a little heavy, having a large text book in it, as well as many notebooks, folders, and papers, as well as a binder. I looked around my room and nodded, leaving it while closing the door behind me. I walked by the coffee table, grabbing my lanyard that had my student I.D., my keys, and a little USB that had 64 gigabytes on it. I didn't use it for much, though, other than just placing games on it to use at school whenever I was in the computer lab in one of my classes when I finished my work. I hung around my neck, over the scarf, and went to the front door, opening it and stepping out, closing it and locking the door.

Bright light immediately greeted me, making my squint my eyes in slight annoyance. I turned right, walking down the sidewalk to my bus stop. It took a few minutes, when I got there, several other teenagers were there, two fox girls were talking, one of them ginger, the other a reddish-brown color. Both of them wore skimpy looking skirts and shirts with some vague symbols on them, if they were allowed to wear that to school, I wasn't sure. A group of boys were standing around, chit-chatting with each other, wearing jackets or hoodies. I simply tuned out the chatter of them, and kept my eyes on the ground. Until I bumped into someone with a bit more force than I thought.

A girl gasped as she fell over, and I almost did as well. I heard the clatter and couple dull thuds as the things she was holding fell to the ground. My face flushed as red as an apple I'm sure as blood rushed into it in shame. Eyes wide, I stooped down, outstretching my hand to her. Some of the boys whistled, and the girls giggled louder, but I ignored them.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going," I apologized quickly. I looked her over—a skinny red fox with a white muzzle and spots on her face. Her eyes were average, but curved in a pretty way. She was flat-chested, he noticed, with barely an visible curve to her hips. Other than her face, she didn't appear very feminine, and he didn't recognize her from anymore. He was brought back when she opened her eyes, still grimacing from falling over on her side, and looked at me squarely. Her mouth was slightly open in an 'o', and she slowly took my hand. I repositioned my legs, and cautiously took her by the waist, lifting her up fairly easily and back to her feet. The contact was a bit uncomfortable for me—I disliked being touched by people in most cases, so I released her quickly, kneeling down and picking up the things she dropped in a neat pile, standing back up and handing them to her.

"It's, um, okay," she said quietly, which I assumed to be her normal voice. Bangs of hair came down and hid her left eye. I noted the color of them as our eyes met; blue and green irises locking with amethyst purple. For some strange reason, they mesmerized me, and I stared for a lot longer than was probably comfortable, as she looked away, coughing slightly, jolting me.

"Oh, sorry, um ..." It was then that the bus honked it's horn, catching both mine and her attention as it came to a stop at the bus stop sign. I quickly moved over to it as soon as the door opened and stepped inside, first in the line. The interior was dark, barely lit by a few overhead lights. I chose a seat near the middle of the bus, one of the few that were empty, and scooted to the end of it close to the window. I looked out of it, suddenly quite bored, and waited several moments before I felt the seat on my end jump up for a moment. I looked back to see the same girl I had bumped into just seconds ago.

"Hullo," I said, probably dumbly. I looked her over again, noticing her clothing this time. A black shirt with a gray zip-up jacket with a pair of plain blue-grayish jeans, and wore converse shoes similar to mine but in black. I looked back up and our eyes met once again.

"Hi," she said timidly. "You don't mind if I sit here, do you? Everywhere else is full." Her voice had that softness to it once again, and I had to strain my hearing slightly to hear her clearly above the talk in the bus.

"No, no, not at all," I answered, blinking. Awkward silence settled over the two of us, and she shifted uncomfortably. I was dazed by her eyes yet again, and I shook my head. Why did that keep happening? "My name is Bled—um, you can call me Pale, that's what my name means in English."

She tilted her head to the side, not breaking eye contact, and yet again, I found myself getting lost in them. My mind screamed at me to get ahold of myself, and I did, but I only caught the end of what she was saying. "... Even listening to me?" I snapped out of my trance, and she appeared annoyed, eyeing me suspiciously. "That's the second time you just tuned out at just looking at me."

I smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm just really out of it today," I explained, which was true. "Could you please repeat what you said?"

She huffed. "Fine," she conceded, though I suspected grudgingly. I could tell she was trying a little hard not to laugh at me, though, considering how annoyed she seemed, a smile tugged at the edges of her lips. "I said that you had a cool name, and mine was, is, Summer. My name is Summer," she smiled gently at me after she fumbled her words.

"That's a really pretty name," I commented lightly, hoping to ease the atmosphere. It seemed to work, she relaxed a little bit, so I did as well. "Are you new to school? I don't think I've seen you around before."

She nodded. "Actually, yes, I just moved into the city and got put into school today."

I knew it. "Oh, cool." Just then, the bus came to a stop. I looked out the window to see the large brick school. Students began making their way out of the bus, and when I turned around again, Summer was gone. Sighing, I stood up, leaving the bus last. My mood dropped as I stared at the school for a few moments before making my way to the front door. Stairs led up to the next floor and I climbed them, deciding to just go straight to my first class of the day. High school sucks.

Short time skip

I dropped my bag down next to my desk, taking a seat in it a moment later. I was the first one in my third hour class, like usual. Soon, others began filing in, but I didn't pay attention to them. It was math, more specifically, Algebra B. I hated this class, mostly because it was so boring, which gave me trouble working because I lost focus easily. I simply pulled my math notebook from my backpack and set it on my desk, twirling my pencil in my hand. I glanced around the room; most of the students were here. I looked at the front of the room, and was surprised to see the same girl from the bus ... Summer, I think her name was.

I could tell she saw me as well, and recognized me, because our eyes met yet again. I could still see hers perfectly, which gave me slightly pause. I lifted my hand up to my forehead, giving her a small salute with two fingers. She gave a short wave back and the teacher walked into the room, a tall bulldog by the name of Mr. Dog, creative, right?

"Everyone quiet down now," he yelled over the nice, his voice gruff and scratchy, and was his normal one. "I'd like to introduce you to Summer Amelia Jorgen. Ms. Jorgen why don't you go have a seat in front of Mr. Whitecrow?" Mr. Dog pointed at her, and I was suddenly aware of the empty seat in front of him. Shit, why did he have to choose me when there were plenty of other empty seats? She walked over and set her books on the desk, her bag on the floor. I was turned in my seat, my legs in the idea, staring down at the ground, pointedly not looking at her.

"Um ... Pale, right?" That familiar, soft voice asked. I closed my eyes, cursing up a storm in my head, using a very wonderful vocabulary that would probably get me immediately sent from the class. I reopened my eyes and stiffly turned to face her.

"Hi, Summer," I said in a clipped voice, as I kept my eyes away from hers as best I could, letting them wander to any part of her face but her eyes. Those pools of purple that intrigued me so much for some stupid reason, unfortunately, I found them anyways, but I didn't get lost in them this time, they just seemed normal. I was relieved.

"Hello," she responded, smiling. "I'm actually happy to see you again ... A lot of the students here are really rude." That's right, the students here were rude. I was part of the minority of those decent ones who didn't go out of their way to knock everyone's books out of their hands or trip each other when the teacher wasn't looking. I smiled apologetically at her.

"Yeah," I said, scratching the back of my head, ruffling the quilled feathers there somewhat. "This school is unfortunately dominated by those people. Maybe like 30% of the school is actually decent." My statement was reinforced when someone threw a ball of paper at my head. Summer gasped in surprise by it, while I slowly turned my head in the direction it came from, glaring daggers at the student—the stupid looking brown male hedgehog from my bus stop. I turned back to the pretty fox girl, left eye twitching in annoyance. "As you just saw," I gritted out.

"That really was rude of him," she whispered to me, but then, almost everything she said was barely above a whisper, so there wasn't much of a difference. I could tell she was looking at the boy, but then she blushed horribly, surprising me and hiding her face in her hands.

"What's up?" I asked quickly, turning my head to look back at the hedgehog, who was smirking.

"H-he ... did a, um, hand gesture for ... Getting a ..." She squeaked and trailed off. A flush of anger went through me. What the hell was the matter with this guy? In the middle of class, too? What a cliche douchebag, you see that in those stupid high school movies. I looked toward the front of the room, Mr. Dog wasn't looking. I reached into my bag and pulled out a pen and hurled it at the boy. My aim was true; it struck him in the center of his forehead. He fell backwards out of his desk, his back and head hitting the floor. The students around laughed heartily. When he got back up, he hopped over the few desks that were between us, and I stood up. I towered over him, my face set in an angry scowl, my fists clenched, ready for a fight.

"That's enough, you two!" Mr. Dog shouted. I looked up at him before shifting my eyes back to the brown hedgehog, just in time to duck under a fist. My instincts kicked in—I delivered a quick punch to his gut with an even faster elbow delivered to his jaw. He groaned in pain, stumbling and falling backwards over the desk. My body was tense, my face set in a neutral expression now, staring at the place he had fallen. The idiot was moaning, and I took pleasure in his suffering. Mr. Dog rushed over, picking the knocked down boy up by the arm and taking him to the front of the room and sent him limping back to his seat.

He turned to me now and stared for a few moments before giving me a sly wink before setting his face in a reprimanding expression, his eyes narrowed—he was a good actor when he wanted to be. "Mr. Whitecrow, in the hallway, now!" He barked. I nodded, making myself appear sunken. I stepped over my bag and Summer's, but then a soft hand grabbed mine. I turned in place, arching an eyebrow at her.

She was stock-still, gaping up at me, her eyes wide. She then seemed to notice that she had a hold on my hand and let go. It dropped back to my side and I smiled at her. "You're welcome," I whispered, just loud enough for her to hear and turned away, walking down the aisle, only my left arm swinging (it's actually how I walk in real life, really abnormal) and opened the classroom door, stepping out into the hallway. I stood there, leaning against the wall of the class. It was maybe 3 minutes before Mr. Dog came out, looking annoyed. When he closed the door, however, his face brightened. He clapped me on the arm.

"Nice job in there, boy, that hedgehog needed a lesson," he praised me. I smirked.

"It was my pleasure to punch him, I've been wanting to for a while," I replied coolly. He nodded in understanding.

"Yes, I think I know why. Now, let's go back in, shall we, and you will look recently reprimanded while I appear exasperated.

"Of course, Mr. Dog," I said, laughing in my head. Though the subject was boring, he was by far one of my best teachers. I put on my best sullen expression, while he made himself appear, as he said, exasperated, impatient. I walked back into class first, with him at my heels, and headed straight for my seat, sitting down in it. Summer immediately turned to me, and actually leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. I blushed, I could feel my face turn red as heat rushed to it and with the center of it at the place she kissed me. The spot tingled, butterflies flying around my stomach.

"Thank you, Pale," she murmured, and I blinked stupidly, unused to such gestures.

"N-no problem," I replied equally, stunned. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that blasted bulldog smirking in my direction. What a perv, watching me get a kiss from a girl. I couldn't help but feel much better after that little gesture from her, though.

The rest of the class proceeded as normal, he gave a quick review to some algebra things that I barely paid any attention to, but Summer was writing down fairly quickly, jotting notes on a paper, and then giving us a worksheet. I finished it fairly quickly, and then let my attention wander around the room, glancing between the students warily. Many of the students avoiding looking at the corner we both sat in, probably in fear of what I would do to them as well. Except for a few, who looked back and gave a thumb up. I returned the gesture with my own. Soon, the bell rang, and I packed my things up, but, I waited for Summer. It took her a bit longer. I against one of the desks, and when she was ready go and began to get up; she seemed surprised to see I was still there. As if I would just leave her alone after that incident in class.

"Do you have lunch after this period?" I asked, mostly because I did, and I was hoping that she would be able to come with me. I liked this girl, I liked her a lot, and I only just met her!

"Yes, I do," she answered in that soft voice, it sounds so innocent, so sweet to me.

I held out my arm for her, and she tentatively took it, seeming to magnetize to my right side. The skin she touched burned with pleasure—what the hell was up with me and this girl? I guess it doesn't matter. I led her out of the class room, arm-in-arm, and eventually while we working walking in the crowd, our hands touched and our fingers laced together. I felt so strange being this close to somebody, especially someone I only just met a few hours ago.

We reached the lunch room soon, but then, something felt off to me. The atmosphere didn't seem right. I stopped, Summer coming to a stop next to me, looking up at me, confused. I looked around the cafeteria, searching for something that possibly stood out, what was giving me such an eerie feeling about the area. My attention snapped to the red fox that I was currently holding hands with as she looked at me, concern written all over her face.

"Are you okay, Pale?" She asked softly. Our eyes met and I shook my head.

"No ... Something doesn't feel right," I answered distractedly. I then looked towards the north wall. I felt something inside my head suddenly, and it felt powerful. It made my ears ring, my mind reverberate in pain. I gasped, reaching up with my free head to clutch at my forehead. I saw Summer's mouth move, but I couldn't hear her, all sound in the world became dull, except for one sound; a loud, gravelly voice, and had power to its words, making me want to obey. I'm sure it was only heard within my own head, as the rest of the students moved about as normal.

'Get to cover,' it said, just as the north wall exploded. I let go of Summer and shoved her sideways; a large piece of rock flew out from the wall as I saw shiny metal things swarm into the school. It hit me directly in the head, and red dots edged my version. I felt to the ground, my head hitting the floor. Something wet flowed from my forehead, I could feel it. Everything sounded quiet, and I was barely aware of someone shaking me, seeming to scream. My vision was clouded, my mind glazed over as I struggled for consciousness, but eventually I was subdued and fell into the darkness.

**Author Note (Is this allowed?):**

**So, this is my very first entry on ! I've written a few stories on my DeviantArt before this one and posted them there, but this is also my first story planned to be a multi-chapter thing. I will be involving many characters in the story, and may also allow a few OCs as well if I can find a place for them within the story. The following characters that will be most likely be seen (please note: The story has not been planned extremely far ahead yet, so this list is subject to change):**

**Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog, Cream the Rabbit, Amy Rose, Miles 'Tails' Prower, Knuckles the Echidna, Rouge the Bat, Doctor Eggman, Bled (Pale) Whitecrow (MY OC :D), Summer Jorgen (another OC of mine, but is actually a placeholder), and possibly others that I can't think of off the top of my head.**

**Anyways, I hope you enjoy it, because I enjoyed writing this.**

_**Sonic the Hedgehog and other characters belong to SEGA and Sonic Team.**_

_**Summer and Bled belong to me.**_


	2. A Destroyed School

**AN: Welcome to chapter two, fellas! I thought this was going to take a little bit longer, but I managed to finish it tonight and and read through it quickly. Enjoy, please rate and review!**

**All Sonic characters belong to SEGA and Sonic Team.**

**Vulcan belongs to my friend!**

**Bled, Gizmo, and Summer belong to me!**

The next time a coherent thought went through my head, it was filled with pain. The front and back of my head ached. I explicitly remembered taking a rather large rock flying at probably 100 miles per hour to my forehead and falling over, obviously. Who wouldn't fall from taking such a thing right in front of where their brain would be? _The idea of someone taking a hit from a large rock going that fast to their head and NOT being knocked unconscious is ludicrous, _I thought. But then I remembered how much my head was currently hurting, and I briefly wondered how I forgot about it, but then a throb of pain reverberated throughout my brain, once again reminding me it was still there.

I slowly opened my eyes, grimacing as the pain in my head flared up, dying down, and coming back to a peak once again, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. It was at this point that I really, really hated that damned rock that flew out of almost nowhere ('nowhere' being the bloody hole in the bloody wall that caused the bloody rock to come at my face and give me a bloody forehead). Now that I thought of the rock (ow, brain, stop having a migraine) my eyes slowly slid to my immediate right, where the rock lay next to my arm, ash covering it with the visible tip where it impacted. It was slightly disconcerting to see my blood on the rock.

I felt way too dizzy to even fathom the thought of picking that rock up and attempting to destroy it. My willpower simply wasn't enough to do such a feat, and even if it was, I don't think I was patient enough to follow through with the task. Another throb from my head reminded me, once again, that I had quite the headache, a migraine even. _Migraines suck,_ I moaned mentally. I blinked my eyes open quickly and through the bleary haze that was settled over my vision, I could make out that it was night time. I raised my hands up to rub my eyes, they instinctively closing to not let in any foreign material.

I slowly sat up in place, rubbing only my left eye now with my left hand, my right wide open. I looked at my surroundings and immediately noticed a nice ring of rubble that was around my body. Either something above was looking out from me, or I got extremely lucky. Either way, go figure. However, it was at this point that my migraine reached a new level of pain, flaring in time with my heartbeat still, the center of it at the place of impact of the rock. I groaned softly, holding my left hand to my forehead now. Damn that rock, why was it so rude?

I looked over to my side for the rock. I found it easily, and picked it up shakily with my free hand, bringing it up to eye-level to inspect it, a very noticeable layer of dust and ash had settled over the top of it, staining my fingertips with the stuff. I tried to recall why I was knocked unconscious now; searching through my memory ... Something made that wall go boom. What did those robots have against walls anyways? Wait, robots? Yes, that's right, those shiny things that were moving in as a swarm ... Strange, who would make an army of robots? I didn't know, and I threw the rock off somewhere. I heard it land with a dull thud, and I barely managed to catch it breaking into several pieces upon landing.

Satisfaction filled me. Take THAT, stupid rock, feel my wrath! With that brief victory scream in my head, I felt slightly better about my current situation. I slowly stood up, my joints and back cracking from having laid in the same position for such a long time. I groaned as I got to my full height, and dusted myself off; there was a relatively large amount of dust that had built upon on my body in a lot of places, but I just paid it no mind and inspected my surroundings. Tables were overturned and shattered, chairs were destroyed and mangled, rotting food covered in dirt, some of them squashed by feet from what looked like, was scattered around the floor, along with lunch trays, jackets, backpacks, and much more.

That wasn't even counting the debris that had settled all across the cafeteria floor. I small light caught my eye, and I looked up to see a large chunk of the ceiling was missing, bathing a spot a few feet to my left in moonlight. It looked kind of cool in reality, and I admired it for a few moments before deciding it was time to move along. Placing my hand on a piece of stone that was there, I slowly stepped over it into a clear area. However, I walked for a few seconds, observing the dreadful scenery before something shiny caught my attention.

I turned my head; my eyes squinted in the direction of the shiny. A small patch of moonlight was hitting a specific spot, something large was semi-squished by large chunks of what I think is wall or ceiling. I felt sort of sorry for whatever thing it fell upon, but then had the strange thought that it looked like a taco, which made me stop in my tracks and confused me greatly. That ADHD I was diagnosed with as a child must be getting to me. Which reminded me, did I ever take my pills that morning? No, I didn't. Humming quietly, I made my way over to the shiny, stepping over rocks, wrecked tables and chairs, and food. My stomach grumbled, but NOT for the food I was currently seeing.

I reached the shiny shortly after, and noticed it was a very bulky thing, with its head poking out from under the debris. A weird triangular shaped thing with what I could see was probably some lights on it, sort of in the shape of a visor. I reached out and touched the thing, dusting its head off lightly, that's when I noticed the strange symbol it had on the top of its head; a red face that appeared to be a silhouette, smiling with small, rounded eyes and two bumps on the top of its head with three spikes coming from both sides of the face, looking like a moustache. It must be the mark of the manufacturer, and the mark seemed oddly familiar.

Shrugging it off, I was about to stand up until the lights on the robot suddenly came alive, its visor flaring up red. I squawked in surprise, completely taken off guard, falling on my butt and scrambling back away from the thing. My heart raced as I watched the mechanical thing struggle for a minute before a strange buzzing came from it and the lights on it suddenly died out once more and it laid still. I let out a breath that I was apparently holding; what away to scare a guy, touching something you thought was broken and it suddenly coming alive.

I slowly stood back up, not having the courage to go near the thing once again. I officially hated robots; they wrecked my school (though it was already a dump, the students here were a bunch of douchebags), and it gave me the jump scare of my life just now. Stupid robots, they should get a life. I chuckled at my own mental joke out loud, and was suddenly grateful that no one was around to see me laughing like a madman (bird?). Excusing my scatterbrained-ness, I tried to recollect what had happened yesterday once more, starting from the beginning.

The first thought that immediately came to my mind was that strange dream I had woken up from, and in the flashback of the dream, the memory, I remembered the symbol I had saw there. It was the same one on the top of this robot's head. That couldn't be just a coincidence, but what was the relation between the dream and what was happening now? Was it maybe a warning that this was going to happen? If it was, why was it so vague, and why did it involve me getting tortured? Something about an experiment ... Was whoever owned these robots collecting Mobians for an experiment of some kind with that 'Master Emerald' thing in the dream?

Then there was the battle that was occurring before and after the flashback within my dream. Was that mere chance, was that fake as well? Or was it some foreshadowing of the future? If it WAS a vision of the future, why was it given to me? Did anyone else have the dream as well? This was all just too confusing to process at the moment, what was the purpose of launching an attack on a high school of all things? What happened to everyone, the school was vacant as far as I could tell. I tapped my foot in thought, rubbing the underside of my beak with my right hand's thumb and index finger, my left arm folded under my right's elbow.

I was snapped out of my thoughts as something creaked behind me before I heard something splinter and break, creating a loud commotion as several pieces of something fell to the ground. My sharp ears caught the sound and interpreted it as wood. However, I hardly notice that, just as I was hardly breathing, having frozen up. What the hell was moving behind me, and why did I just had the gut feeling to not look, to run away as fast as possible? I think I knew what was behind me as well, and a series of electronic beeps only confirmed those fears of mine. Slowly, I turned around.

A robot stood before me, blue in color, and just as bulky as the one I under the rocks. Its arms and legs were long and obviously jointed, the pieces sticking out like a sore thumb from the main body, which was triangular in shape just like the head. Six lights protruded from the front of the robot's body, shining straight at me, illuminating a large amount of the front of it. The head also has a search light just under its glowing red eyes, the lights themselves being blue LEDs. It was slightly blinding to my eyes, but I paid no attention, only to its sounds.

"Lifeform detected. Scanning for new data ..." It beeped several times, as if computing. It wasn't even a second later when it dinged. "Mobian detected. Mission; bring all Chaos High School (creative, I know) students to Doctor Eggman for 'Master Experiment'." Well, that basically proved my theories. I turned around and was gone within a heartbeat, sprinting out of the cafeteria through an unblocked, crumbling doorway. The vibrations from my feet apparently was enough to make it collapse as well, but I heard a loud bang, followed by more bangs, and then loud metal feet scraping the floor consistently from a distance behind me.

This wasn't looking good for me. I sharply turned a corner, moving down the hallway as fast as I could. I knew this school like the back of my hand; hopefully the robot didn't have a map installed on its hard drive. The pain in my head had escalated from the physical strain, and it didn't help that the robot was chasing me too. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a door open as I was about to pass it. I didn't have time to react; two hands reached out and grabbed me by the arms, yanking me sideways and into the room with it. I screeched in surprise and fear, but a hand quickly clasped itself over my beak as the door shut.

"Quiet, idiot, or you'll get us both caught!" A male voice angrily muttered. It was a bit scratchy. I recognized the voice almost immediately. _Vulcan?_

I didn't have much time to really think about that thought, though. I heard the heavy footsteps coming down the hallway slowly, the robot had apparently heard and me and followed the sound. I hoped to all divine things above that it would not think to check the room. _Do robots think? I'll have to figure that out later._ I thought, but kept myself deadly quiet, barely daring to even breathe in any air, thinking that it might make too much noise, as I wasn't sure exactly how sensitive the hearing devices that were likely installed onto the damn robot were.

Several tense seconds went by as me and my captor heard the robot shuffling around just outside the door, obviously trying to figure out where in the world I went. Honestly, I wasn't sure what room I got pulled into by this madman in the first place, though he might have just saved me from becoming the lab rat of this 'Doctor Eggman'. Soon, I heard the footsteps getting quieter, until they disappeared completely. I was then released and I immediately spun away and made a short hop backwards.

A tall red and orange hedgehog stood before me with blue stripes down his upturned spines and down his arms and legs. His spines themselves were chaotic, appearing like flames, and to some extent, WERE flames, the very tips of the quills moving around on their own, ever burning. The hedgehog that stood before me had his arms crossed, a smirk on his muzzle, his ears perked up, and amusement in his eyes at my cautiousness. I don't know what was so amusing about it, considering he literally grabbed me out of nowhere and pulled me inside what appeared to be a classroom.

I eased out of my stance, splaying my arms out in a questioning manner. I was about to speak, but Vulcan got there first. "I didn't expect to see you around, Pale. Where were you when they took everyone else?" He asked, still sounding highly amused. I don't know why he found the situation currently humorous; everyone was taken away by some crazy scientist.

"I—what—how—" I stuttered incoherently. After the third attempt at failing to formulate speech, I sighed. This was all just way too crazy for me to handle. So I just decided to answer him. "I didn't expect to see you either," I sounded relieved, which of course, I was. "But I was out there in the cafeteria unconscious on the floor from the original explosion. Vulcan tilted his head, his eyes scanning my body.

He responded after a few seconds. "Must have not gotten hit in the original one, then, the only thing I see on you is that nasty welt on your head. Also, it's nice to know you got a really nice nap while everyone was running around screaming." He grinned. "I'm just glad you didn't get captured."

I sighed. "Yeah, I am as well ..." I then spotted movement behind Vulcan. It was easier to spot because his body glowed very softly, , but my natural bird eyesight made it so I could see in the darkness either way. Which, I realized, this classroom was very dark, probably kept that way so the robots didn't think anyone was in here. Vulcan noticed where I was looking, and glanced over his shoulder. He stepped sideways.

A petite ferret girl was kneeled down, her eyes locked onto a backpack she was apparently fussing with, her hands reached inside the main compartment of it and shuffling around, probably looking for something. She was mostly brown in color, with flecks of white and black along her body, though most of the white seemed comprised to her face, while the black affected her arms. She wore brown cargo shorts and a born tank top, a white jacket draped over her with the sleeves rolled up. I'm slightly ashamed to admit this, but that girl was packing quite a bit of junk in the trunk, and I wondered why that was even a thing in society. I never understood it. I didn't dare step any closer because I didn't trust this girl in the slightest. Vulcan then cleared his throat softly, however, and the girl looked up at him, appearing confused until he gestured towards me. She looked at me, and I immediately saw distrust flash in her eyes, which were crimson.

"Pale," Vulcan said, addressing me first. My eyes didn't leave the girl when he spoke; never take your eyes off a potential threat. However, I saw my friend gesture to the ferret. "This is Gizmo; she saved me from one of the robots. Gizmo, this is Pale, my best friend at this school. Now, can you please stop distrusting each other so much? It's making this bleak atmosphere worse." He chuckled.

I still didn't move, but the girl looked up at Vulcan. "You could have handled that robot yourself if you didn't refuse to melt the hunk of junk down with your fire because of all the people around," she protested, humbly, her voice high-pitched and squeaky. I immediately thought it was extremely annoying—it was like those characters that purposely were made to be extremely irritating in those T.V. shows.

He shook his head. "Oh, no, you aren't getting humble on me right now," he said, reaching down and messing up the fur on the top of her head. "This girl right here had a Taser In school for what reason I'm not going to ask and pulled it out, turned it up to maximum, and gave that robot quite an electrifying experience." Gizmo and I both muttered something dark at his pun. Maybe she wasn't so bad after all. Vulcan continued on, unnoticing. "Then we both fled and ran to here. We've been stuck here ever since, and it was apparently the class she was supposed to go to for her next hour after lunch, luckily, she had her bag."

She sighed. "It really was nothing, you know. You could have handled it yourself." Vulcan shrugged.

"Maybe, but you did a better job than me."

Then a thought suddenly struck me at that point. These two were conscious when the attack first started, maybe they could tell me something about what had happened. "Speaking of the attack, could one of you explain exactly what happened? I only remember having a gut feeling that something wasn't right and then the wall exploded. A red fox girl ..." That last part was muttered low enough so only I could hear it, I just remembered the girl. We had walked into the lunch room together, hand-in-hand, and I remembered being a bit of a white knight previously. But, I couldn't remember her name, not even the first letter.

Vulcan shrugged again. Putting on a flat look of unknowing. "I don't know, man. The blasted the wall to smithereens and then started coming into the school is really big numbers. Gizmo and I barely got away in time. We don't know if any others are still in the school, or if maybe they had gotten out of the school before being caught, but if they did, who is to say that the town hasn't been ransacked by these 'bots as well?" He sounded a little more serious now, his arms crossing once again over his chest.

I nodded my head, looking down at the floor in thought. I knew these events couldn't be just coincidences, and if they were, how did the dream I had before tie into all of this? What was really going on here, and for what purpose exactly? If it was like my dream, then, was it to infuse a living being with the powers of the Master Emerald? But, then, I wondered what the giant green diamond was in the first place. Facts I suddenly knew it the dream came to life; a gem of infinite energy, created by some divine force above and given to Mobius as a gift for some deed. That's what the legends told, anyways, whether they were true was questionable at best.

At this point, another thought struck as well. The Master Emerald had chosen me is what I said in the flashback of a memory in the dream. Of course, I could have been making up something completely bogus and irrationally stupid then, but if I was right ... Why did it choose me? I didn't exactly hold any truly defining qualities to myself at first thought, but I never really stopped to examine who I truly was. I just knew who I was and refused to let others change that, I refused to change because others didn't like one thing about me.

Was that why it had chosen me in the dream, because of how I was so sure of myself? That didn't make any sense—Sonic the Hedgehog was sure of himself, he was confident in his abilities, but in the dream he was not chosen, Eggman had stated that 'he could not handle the power,' as well as the infamous Shadow the Hedgehog, rival to the blue blur. Things just didn't make much sense, and I really wished they would start to. What was it about me that made me ... Different?

A hand waved in front of me just then, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Hello, Mobius to Pale, do you read me?" Vulcan asked. I lifted my head up, looking confused.

"Huh?" Was the only thing that I could spit out, not that I really thought hard about what to say.

He laughed, poking my chest fur, just under my scarf. "Zoning out like you always do even in times of crisis? What if I was a robot right then, mate? You need to be aware of your surroundings at all times, trust me, I'm pretty sure it'll pay off in your favor if you do," he playfully scolded me, smirking.

I shoved him back, making him stumble a good foot or two back. "Yeah, and what about those times I've caught you staring off into space thinking about whatever goes on in that messed up head of yours?" I shot back.

Vulcan chose not to respond, but walked back to me and to me side, draping one of his arms across my shoulders. "You seem a little tense, something on your mind, Mr. White?" He asked, using my nickname. I hated that nickname, and he knew I did. I sighed, might as well tell them.

"Well ... Take a seat, Vulcan, Gizmo; I'm going to need to start from before I woke up to tell you this story." I walked over to the desks and sat down on the table. The two of them followed, with the ferret a little reluctant as she took a seat across from me, with Vulcan right next to me on my right, leaning on the desk I was sitting on. I went straight into a full explanation of what was going on through my head, starting from the beginning where I first had my dream, from when I woke up, discovered the emerald colored eye I now possessed, and the strange experience I had coming to school, all the way up to me finally meeting back up with them. They both listened intently, ears pricked up. When I finished, Vulcan was frowning for once, his smirk having vanished completely from his face.

"So, that evil Doctor Eggman from the news ... You think he has kidnapped everyone and taken them to experiment on them with this object called the 'Master Emerald,' which is a sort of limitless power?" I nodded. Figures he could sum it up so easily, he always did. He stood up completely, looking at both me and Gizmo seriously. "Well, we need to go save them!"

I'm sure the look we both gave him was mutual, because that was simply a crazy idea. "'Go save them'?" I repeated incredulously. "Vulcan, I don't know if you noticed, but we barely saved ourselves from these robots, and the fact that we would probably be going to the heart of a evil scientist's base to rescue thousands of prisoners is a ludicrous idea as it is!"

"I agree with the bird, Vul," Gizmo piped up, her squeaky ears grating on my nerves even more now that I was in close proximity to her. "That sounds like a bad idea ... Let those heroes handle it! Wouldn't they know that Eggman had attacked us?"

Vulcan growled, which shocked me; he was never known to growl before. "Well, we can't just sit here and do nothing! Where are they now? They haven't even come to check if there are any students that might have escaped and been trapped here like us yet." He exclaimed, probably a bit too loudly.

I hate to admit it, but Vulcan did have a point. Those heroes we've heard so much about in the news haven't even come to check on the high school, which could mean many things, each of my theories worse than the last. "Yes, but ... We're just high school sophomores! What could we even do against those robots?"

The red and orange hedgehog shrugged now, returning to his previous expression, though slightly more neutral now. "I have my pyrokinetic abilities, Gizmo is a whiz at engineering and building things," I noticed she blushed slightly, but said nothing, "and you ..." He paused, looking slightly miffed.

Yes, exactly. I didn't have anything special about me, I would be almost powerless against these robots unless I could suddenly learn how to do a Spin Dash like Sonic, or use Chaos powers like some of the other students in the school. Many of them had powers; ice manipulation, telekinesis, water bending, super speed, extreme strength, electric manipulation, and in one case, magic. Except for me, though, I was the minority. I had nothing special about me, and if that brown hedgehog from early wasn't a total wimp, he could have annihilated me. I knew he had the ability to bend earth to his will, yet I picked a fight with him anyways.

I sighed. "Yes, I know, I don't have anything special. I'm not super smart, I don't have super speed, I can't fly, and I can't do any of that crazy stuff you guys can do with water, fire, wind, whatever. I would be totally helpless against the robots."

Gizmo was looking thoughtful, however. "Well ... if I could get my hands on some scrap metal and some makeshift tools; I might be able to put something together to help you. I know I'm crazy for saying this, but I think we should try it."

I looked between the two of them. "Are you sure?" I asked, didn't want to rush into things if we didn't have our minds made up.

"Yes," they both answered in unison.

I patted my legs with my hands, standing up. "Well, looks like we're going on a rescue mission then, guys." I said with finality. "But first, we're going to need a plan."


	3. I Knew It

So, our plan was very simple, especially the first step; don't get immediately caught by robots as soon as we take a step out of that doorway. I went first, mostly because I was the most daring out of the three of us (Vulcan being somewhat of a coward), Gizmo being too small to do much at all if she was immediately snatched up by a robot, and the fact that I was the most expendable out of the group. If anyone was to be captured, it should be me just because I didn't have an extreme amount to offer the group except possibly some sick gymnastics.

That Gizmo girl was actually more useful than I first expected in hindsight; for some strange reason she had a lot of weird cords and gadgets in her backpack. "Just for the occasion I ever needed them," she told me when I asked her about them, especially when she just happened to have multiple little earpieces with small microphones that were all connected to each other, allowing us to talk from long distances, she said something about it being able to transmit the signal for nearly a hundred miles. Damn, that was some cool tiny earpiece.

Unfortunately, that earpiece was almost utterly useless to me; I didn't have an extreme amount of ear to attach it to, not to mention my ears were different from the normal ones you see around anyways so we went with a second set of earpieces. The microphone could attach and be hidden in my scarf with a little ear bud that was connected by a cord that I could easily put in my weird bird ears. Surprisingly, it was rather comfortable as well, and I wondered briefly how she managed to get the money for things like this. These had to have cost a lot, but that didn't really matter right now anyways.

Once we got out of that doorway, we all figured the plan wouldn't matter an extreme amount anyways because it would probably be instantly wrecked as soon a robot saw us anyways. So, in other words, we were winging it from there. I crept up to the doorway and pressed my ear to it. I couldn't hear anything, so I stepped back lightly and turned the doorknob, slowly opening it and sticking my head out to inspect the surroundings.

I never really took the time to look at the hallways of the school now, but I just noticed that the lockers that lined the walls were covered in dents, some of them torn to shreds entirely, long blades of metal jutting out from them, and I suspected it would be extremely painful should one of us accidentally be cut by one of those, if any of us were possibly impaled on them. That made me cringe slightly; I could scarcely imagine having a piece of metal shoved straight through my stomach or chest, the thought was even worse when I imagine Gizmo or Vulcan.

Luckily, though, the coast was clear, not a robot in sight, though I could see my footprints from earlier in the dirt and dust covered floor, and the larger sort of circle-ish footprints of that robot chasing me, whose people apparently dwarfed mine in comparison; I even saw the skid mark of me abruptly coming to a stop next to the doorway from Vulcan grabbing me. Either this robot was actually stupid, not very observant, or there was a bigger game happening here that we were not yet aware of. I really hoped that wasn't the case.

"Everything looks clear," I whispered and opened the door wider, creeping past it into the hallway. Little pieces of material crunched under my feet, I didn't notice the sound before because of what was currently happening around me, not to mention I was deep in thought. I listened intently for any possible robots that might have come by as Vulcan and Gizmo came out, who place a taser in my hands.

"You'll need it a lot more than I will," she explained in a hushed voice. I nodded and gripped it firmly in my hand, looking it over quickly. It was a black thing, in the shape of a weirdly shaped gun. It appeared to have an aiming sight on the top of it, thought it was extremely small and I doubted it could be extremely accurate. I don't think I would need to be too awfully accurate with these 'bots anyways.

That also reminded me of the time when I was little when my dad was still around. He took me out to the shooting range and taught me how to use a real gun, one of those things that used lead bullets instead of these guns today that used plain beams of energy. Hopefully I could still use one either way.

Carefully keeping my taser at the ready, I turned to the two of them. "Alright, we'll split up. Let's first see if there are any other 'survivors' in the school, anyone that might have not been taken or is making refuge in one of the rooms. We'll probably have to check every one, and if any one of them is locked, it may have a good chance of being occupied, unless these robots just aren't bright," Vulcan chortled softly at me. "Excuse the pun," I coughed.

I shook my head, though, and my fiery friend became serious once more. "Alright ... Vulcan, you go right down this hallway and look for anyone in the A, B, and C wings. Those areas are the main classrooms of the school, so if there is a refuge, it will probably be there. Be careful, you may probably be the most powerful out of us currently, but I doubt these 'bots will go down without a fight. Try not to burn the school down."

Vulcan gave me a mock salute of understanding, and I turned to Gizmo. The short brown and white ferret looked at me expectantly. Then I realized; why was I the leader, she was the smartest out of us. Shaking that thought off, I spoke up. "Gizmo, you'll go to the cafeteria first; there's a broken robot under a pile of rubble that you might be able to use as scrap metal if we can uncover a bit of it. Be _cautious_, though, the thing came on when I woke up from my nap on the floor."

She appeared thoughtful now, her eyes wandering to the end of the hall. "Hm ... that could be useful. If we're lucky, these robots don't have a failsafe security measure and I could possibly hack into its hard drive and extract some information from that." That sounded like a really good idea.

"Okay, when you've finished with that, I want you to go downstairs to the gymnasium and search for people there. If you come across any robots that spot you, run to Vulcan if you can't handle it yourself." I paused, closing my eyes for a moment, thinking. "I'll go downstairs as well but the K wing's downstairs. I'll check the main office and the director's office, and then once I've finished with the K wing, I'll be going to the D wing and looking for people there. It's the most out of the way area of the school, so there is the chance that there are people there as well."

They nodded, and I did too. "If you find anyone, anyone at all, call it in and we'll finish our sweeps of our sections quickly and head over to your location. If one of you also found someone in your sections, take them with you. We'll meet back here in 30 minutes. Now go, hurry," I shooed them off and they hurried away. I watched them until they turned their respective corners and was out of my sight.

I sighed; I thought this was still a stupid idea, why did I agree to this? What a way to get captured should we actually come across a robot especially me. I shook my head—no time for second thoughts now. I stalked to the end of the hallway and moved my head out just enough to see if there was anyone there. No one, so I turned the corner Gizmo went (the left one) and moved as quickly as I could while still being silent, the small crunches of the ash, dust, and dirt annoying me greatly.

I turned right now when I came to another hallway section, the previous one I had run down from out of the cafeteria. I saw through the darkness a small form moving, and recognized it as Gizmo. Blinking, I continued forward a few paces before I came to the class wall that separated the main office from the rest of the school. Much of it was broken, scattered all across the floor, and I picked my way carefully across said floor to the actual doorway, turning the doorknob. Except, it didn't turn, apparently locked.

_That was fast,_ I thought absently, and then looked at the shattered glass pane near the floor. I sighed and crouched down as low as I can, moving parallel to it and slowly maneuvering my way under the beam that separated the panes of the glass. The shards crunched somewhat loudly under my feet, and I stopped to wince every time it happened, looking back to check for robots. My sharp hearing picked up Gizmo shuffling about, the sound abruptly stopping whenever I shifted my foot slightly, the glass making a lot of noise.

I undid the microphone from my scarf and hit a button on it to activate it. "Testing ... Don't worry, Gizmo, the sound is just me trying to get into the office. The door was locked so I'm crawling through the broken window," I said quietly, waiting for a reply.

It came soon, she sounded relieved, the voice having a bit of static in it. "Roger, Pale," she replied. I continued on my way and eventually made it through the window, unharmed. Nodding, I took a step forward but something slipped from under my foot and I fell forward. I squawked, surprised, and fell to the floor. As I was falling, I felt something slash my face, and I could feel my skin ripping across my eye and my head all the way to my beak. I fell to the floor in pain, my hand clutched to my injured right eye. I could feel blood oozing from it.

Hissing in pain, I kept that eye shut and slowly picked myself up off the floor. I wiped away as much blood as I could, huddled there on one knee, nursing the new wound I just obtained. It hurt badly, and I had no idea what had even caused such an injury. A voice sounded in my ear, I recognized it as Gizmo. "Was that you, Pale? Are you okay?"

I fumbled clumsily for the microphone with my free hand, resting my elbow on one of my knees. "Fine," I hissed through the pain, "I fell and scratched my eye. Nothing big, stay focused on the task at hand." She didn't respond.

I stood up slowly, being much more careful about my footing. I didn't bother looking for whatever had done the damage to me, and keeping my hand secured over my right eye, I made my way around the front the desk and crept towards the back room where the principal's office was. Surprisingly, I heard what seemed to be footsteps from somewhere nearby. If this was a robot coming close, I was screwed. I gently placed my hand around the knob and slowly turned it.

However, the door suddenly burst open and my hand was wrenched from the knob. Something hit me in the chest. Groaning in pain, I fell backwards onto the floor. My taser fell out of my hand onto the floor. The shards of glassed reached all the way here, and they cut into my back, leaving tiny, shallow cuts all across it that stung. A foot was firmly placed on my chest and I looked up to see another person I didn't expect; Mr. Dog, my bulldog Algebra B teacher. "State yourself!" He ordered gruffly

He pressed his foot down harder, and I had trouble breathing. I coughed painfully. "Pale Whitecrow-HACK-sir," I said quickly. He lightened his press on my chest, taking a few moments to remove it completely. I sat up, coughing, patting my chest with my hand. I completely forgot about the scratch over my eye at the moment, and I could feel a wetness going down my forehead. Whether sweat or flood, I reached up and wiped it away, staining the ashen sports tape on my hand.

"Is it really you, boy?" Mr. Dog asked, kneeling down, squinting at me. Suddenly, he reached out and roughly patted me shoulder with a fair bit of worse that made me wince from the shock of it. "It is you; I thought you were dragged off with the rest of 'em!"

"Yeah, so did everyone else," I replied, my voice scratchy, my throat suddenly dry. "Those robots weren't bright enough to pick an unconscious Mobian off the floor."

"Napping when everyone was being captured, eh?" He asked ruefully.

"Not purposefully," I shot back. I messed with the microphone on my scarf for a moment, turning it on. "Vulcan, Gizmo; I've got a survivor here in the main office. It's Mr. Dog, surprisingly. Continue with your own searches as normal." Said bulldog appeared confused, but I held up a finger for him to be silent.

"Mr. Dog? How did that guy survive?" Vulcan asked, my first time hearing him through the earpiece. He sounded ... different. I couldn't quite place it, though.

"That's actually really unsurprising," Gizmo piped up. When I was about to reply, she continued. "I can't get to the robot, Pale; I'm not strong enough to move the rubble."

It was then that I had an idea; maybe my teacher could be some help. I looked up at him, taking my finger off the microphone button. "Hey, Mr. Dog, could I ask you to do a favor?"

"I suppose, what is it?"

"There's a girl in the cafeteria that I'm partnered up with. She's trying to get a bunch of rocks off this robot to see what can be salvaged from it. Do you think you can help her with that?"

He nodded his head slowly, looking out in the general direction of the lunch room. "Yeah, sure, I could do that," he replied and moved past me. I stood up on my feet, picking my taser back up as I did, watching him go around the desks and to the doorway. He took out a key and fit it into the lock, turning it and opening the door. After, he took the key out and placed it into his pants pocket. He waved at me before exiting.

Happy, I hit the button once more. "Mr. Dog coming your way now, Gizmo, he's going to give you a hand with that robot." I said releasing the button and hiding it back in my scarf. I made my own way around the desks now, and spotted what had damaged my eye. A large, very sharp piece of wood was poking out from the desk, my blood dripping from the tip of it, and it obviously having been broken off by a fight or conflict that had happened in the office, and I suspected that all the school's staff had been taken hostage for the most part and was now enjoying a one-way ticket to being experimented on. That was a dark though.

I exited the main office then, making sure to break that piece and put it somewhere out of the way. I looked left; I could see Mr. Dog's large form and Gizmo's small one working with a large pile of rocks. Nodding, I turned right and crouched down, stalking down the hallway. I turned left down a hallway, soon coming to a classroom. I opened it quickly, and did a slightly slower sweep of the room, checking every nook and cranny for a survivor.

In short; there was no one here, though there were a few useful things that I found like pens that were unharmed, some food I found in some kids backpacks, which I unloaded one of them and stuffed into, and I even found a fire extinguisher. Too bad it was a bit too bulky to take with me normally. The supplies would probably come in handy later, and I exited the last classroom of the K wing and approached the stairwell leading down.

It was dark and slightly gloomy looking. I didn't really trust it myself, a sizeable chunk of the guard rail was missing, which disturbed me just slightly; what could possibly knock out such a large piece of it? A robot must have hurled itself. Holding my taser firmly with one hand, I descended it slowly, one step at a time. Before things were so crazy, I would have been going down two steps at one time, just to speed things up a little bit. The same thing happened for ascending the stairs as well; two steps at once, while those really tall people did three.

Narrowing my eyes, I turned the corner where the landing that marked the middle of the stairs was, inspecting the rest of the way down closely. Halfway down the stairs were broken, I could see what remained of them on the floor below. Not thinking too much of it, I warily dropped down the broken stairs to the ground, wobbling slightly as I landed on some unsteady pieces of the stairs. Stepping over mangled railing, scaffolding, and tile, I made my way to the door and attempted to open it.

Frowning, I brought the taser up and put it in my mouth, biting down on it to keep it still. I yanked on the door, and heard something snap right next to my leg, a piece of whatever smacking it; I wasn't bothered by it much, not like it hurt very badly anyways. Shrugging it off, I squeezed through the doorway, taking the taser out of my mouth and checking it over. The sharp tip of my beak apparently left a small slash in the black of the weapon, and I shrugged, it did that to a lot of things.

Continuing on, I turned left immediately after stepping through the double door way, entering through a wide open oak door to the computer lab. As I expected, all the computers had been wrecked, keyboards split in half, keys strewn across the floor, monitors with holes in them, and mangled desktops ... These robots certainly lacked any graceful qualities to them. All they knew was apparently brute force and collecting their target, whether or not they died in the process, I surmised. This Eggman wasn't a very nice man. Not that I couldn't tell from before, considering the state of the school.

I only did a quick look through the room; there wasn't an extreme amount to behold here except for destroyed computers and their accessories. This guy certainly had something against the Windows ones, because there was a Mac laptop that was completely unharmed, which I took and put in my backpack. It might prove useful later, if it even still worked. Honestly, it was still a surprising find in all honesty, and I considered this room worth the visit because of it. I scrounged around for a little bit longer and find the charger cord as well. I'm sure Gizmo could do something with it, so I put it in my backpack as well.

I stepped back out and entered the second computer lab that was diagonal to the doorway of the previous room. There was also much of the same here, except I found a first aid kit in the closet that hadn't been completely destroyed. Now THAT was a worthy find, and I immediately stowed it in my backpack. I wiped my relatively new eye scratch, forcing myself to remain still through the pain. When I looked at my hand, the side of it was nearly covered in blood. Head injuries always bled worse than everything else.

That was a bad pun, and completely on accident too. I left the room quickly, fearing that more horrible, God-forsaken puns would come to my head if I stayed in that awful, wrecked room any longer. I continued out into the main hall and kept going straight into the classrooms directly opposite of the computer labs. The first classroom was relatively unharmed, which immediately roused my suspicion; why was this one fine, but the others were total dumps? I held my taser at the ready and entered the room cautiously.

Something large hit me upside the head and the only thing I knew was that I was flying. I smashed into a cabinet, the stupid wood of it holding fast and I fell to the floor, sprawled out. My head was spinning as I slowly picked myself up off the floor, though I acutely heard a series of beeps behind me. Damn, why was I the one to find a stupid robot? Why couldn't Vulcan have the bad luck spree with these mean metal machines?

When I finally gotten back to my feet after what I thought was several seconds, the robot was gone. My adrenaline was pumping, and I managed to hold onto my taser from the hit. That's when I heard a loud _thunk_ behind me. I didn't think about, I just turned, pointed my taser, and shot at the robot. Strangely, the tips of the electrical gun punctured the armor of the bot and it began to glitch out. Its arms randomly swung about, it's LED lights flickering, one of them bursting entirely, and the place of impact sizzled and blackened.

I pulled the gun back, yanking the tips of the taser out of the bot. It wobbled for a moment, its lights still flickering before they finally went out and it fell backwards. That was a pretty short lived experience, and a light on the gun blinked at me. I looked at it, above it read 'LOW POWER'. Great, so this thing had only one good shock, and I just used it on the robot in front of me. Not even checking if it was down for the count, and turned and ran out of the classroom. I could check down here again later at some point.

Deciding now would be a good time to check in, I pulled out my microphone. "Hey, it's Pale. I found a robot, tased the hell out of the thing. Don't know if it's out for good, keep a look out, and be cautious. I'm heading up from downstairs in the K wing and going through the cafeteria to the D wing."

Vulcan replied. "Dude, we've been trying to get you for the past minute. Get back to the meeting point, Gizmo has found something with the robot Mr. Dog and her got."

I looked around in the hallway. Well, that was some good news at least. "Roger, Pale out," I said, hiding the microphone again. My body ached from this adventure, and going back to our refuge in the school just seemed really nice suddenly. Deftly, I heard commotion in the classroom I just left and immediately sprinted off to the other stairwell, which were thankfully still intact and climbable. I ascended quickly and went off, making my way back.

I opened and shut the door quickly when I got there, and saw Vulcan leaning his back against the wall, apparently waiting for me. His expression was dark, which set alarm bells off in my head. There must be something wrong if he wasn't looking at least somewhat cheerful. My friend looked up when he saw me and didn't bother verbally addressing me, just waved for me to follow him, so I did, he led me to where the robot was propped up in a sitting position, some back panel of his head opened up. There was a lap top sitting next to it, wires from it to the robot's head connecting the two pieces of machinery together.

Gizmo looked up at me, looking a little disturbed. "Pale, you should come see this," she said and stepped back away from the computer. Warily, I walked over to it. A video was pulled up, and on the video, I could see the fat man in the red, black, and yellow jumpsuit on it. He look neutral, his eyebrows furrowed in what appeared to be interest, and I was startled to see him moving, his fingers twitching ever so slightly. Was this a video file, or did the mad scientist really just hack into the computer and is streaming to us now from wherever he was. Eggman grinned when I came into view, Vulcan standing right behind me.

"Oh, there's your little comrade. A white bird, rare for your species, I can tell what you are; a crow, not like there are many crows in the school anyways, in fact, you're the only one," he immediately said. My eyes narrowed, what exactly was this stupid man playing at, was he trying to insult me? If he was, it didn't work, and he could see that probably. "Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Your female friend there attempted to hack into my robot, but you see, I knew there were a few of you still around because I hadn't checked your names off my list, I'll read them to you now."

We all watched as he swiveled around in his chair, grabbing some paper, a clipboard, and a pencil. He flipped through it for a moment before talking again. "Ah, here we are ... Let's see; Bled Whitecrow, a.k.a., Pale the White Crow. Vulcan Smolderfur, a.k.a., Vulcan the Fire Hedgehog, a rare species ... Gizmo Alcatraz, interesting that you share your last name with the human's highest security prison ... and Cornelius Dog. You three never came in through into my workplace, why is that, I wonder?"

Vulcan growled. "It doesn't matter why we weren't caught, what exactly do you want?" I had to say, I agreed with my burning friend; Doctor Eggman was making me slightly uncomfortable as he just kept looking at me funny. Did he see something I didn't?

"Yes, well, I have a little 'experiment' that requires living creatures ... or you Mobians. You all wouldn't really care to volunteer for my work, but I assure you, it's for the greater ... Good, as you all call it, right? It involves an object called the 'Master Emerald,'" shock slowly came across my face. I was right, why the hell did I have to be right? Eggman seemed pleased with my expression. "Yes, it seems one of you knows what I am talking about. I've been wondering how my great grandfather, Doctor Gerald Robotnik, had created a life form ... Well; I've been doing tests with the Master Emerald's limitless power. Not to create life, but instead, to infuse life with its great power. It has been taxing, but I believe the answer may lay with one of you four, as you're the only ones that have eluded me thus far."

Mr. Dog barked at him, snarling. "You expect us to just come to you and help you? We all know you're an evil lunatic, why would we?"

The fat man with the mustache didn't seem fazed. "You see ... you don't have a choice. I'll be seeing you all in a few short hours." He nodded, and the video suddenly cut to black, an 'END TRANSMISSION' in big, white letters in the middle of it. We all looked around, thinking the same question I could probably guess; what would happen now?

Well, that was soon answered. A robot suddenly broke through the wall at the far end of the classroom behind us, causing us all to jump and look back. _Oh, no ... This was a bad idea from the start, I knew we shouldn't have tried to play hero!_ We jumped again as the door that was supposed to lead into the class room was suddenly splintered and fell apart, the robot I had tased earlier standing in there, and it looked quite menacing. I could see more behind it.

Soon, the robots charged at us, Vulcan threw a hefty fireball at the one from the back of the classroom, hitting it directly in the face in a small, centralized explosion. We all dodged out of the way of the other incoming bot. Well, everyone except for me; I was shoved towards it by someone, whether on purpose or by accident, and it smashed it's fist square into my face. Gasping, I fell backwards over a desk and onto the floor, black dots edging my vision.

I was aware of a commotion happening, I was aware of people yelling, of desks being thrown all over the place, but the sound was dwindling, and I was soon losing focus in anything at all. Soon, everything became silent, and I felt something grab me, hoisting me up and marching me off. Blearily, I saw my friends, Vulcan, unconscious and being carried by the bot he threw the fire at, its face melting still, the red LED flashing. Gizmo, having a nice sized welt on her head, apparently having been instantly knocked unconscious by one of their fists, but Mr. Dog was nowhere to be seen.

I didn't know much else beyond that, the silence was numbing me, and my mind was losing focus once again. I could hardly see anything anymore, I was just aware that I was moving, a large, cold fist wrapped firmly around my torso. It was at this point that I gave up at staying conscious and drifted off, the darkness enveloping me once again.


	4. The Long Road to the Eggman

These robots aren't the friendliest Eggman could have ever made, but I first figured that out when the one smacked be across the room back in my school. I explicitly remembered Eggman—the bad scientist who is the reason we're out here in the first place, on a death march of sorts—saying we would be at his base of operations and his prisoners/test subjects within a few short hours. What a lie that was, we've been walking for nearly two days now. It was still warm out, but it was steadily getting colder as we went; fall was just around the corner.

The weather was the least of my worries, though. All three of us had been knocked unconscious and were being carried in the start of the journey for what I assumed to be at least 5 hours, but after that, the robots forced us to walk on our own. Vulcan was the one that was doing the best out of all of us, fire hedgehogs gaining some of their energy from the sun from what I had researched on my own time at one point when I first met the flame-colored boy those many years ago. I was second best, I had a few injuries, but they didn't bother me much except for my eye.

However, the one that worried me the most out of all of us was Gizmo. The petite ferret had trouble keeping up with us and that hit on her head apparently did much more damage than first expected. I found her constantly tripping, so I made it my goal to walk next to her and catch her whenever she did. Eventually, she would run out of stamina to keep going as well and had to take a rest. The first time the robot looked ready to hit her again, but I stepped in and just carried her. It wasn't like I really minded at all, she didn't weigh much.

However, though physically, Gizmo was the worst out of all of us speaking from a technical standpoint (my injuries that were in greater quantity than them), Vulcan seemed to be the worst off mentally. He hadn't said a word ever since we first were captured and he woke up. I was the first to wake up and the first to be forced to walk for miles on end. He just ... Walked; he didn't do much besides staring at the ground blankly. Where did my best friend go, was his usually happy demeanor knocked out of him by one the bots?

I hated this. I hated that fat man for what he was doing to us, for what the robots were doing to us, making us march for nearly two days straight without the slightest bit of food or water. It was difficult to keep going, sometimes I would feel dizzy and nearly fall over, but something in my head kept telling me that I needed to keep moving forward, that I needed to make it to Eggman's base. It was important to me for whatever reason, probably because I needed answers for all of these questions in my head and the fat scientist had them all.

Speaking about the robots, they all seemed to have different personalities, as if they were human. They beeped frequently, most likely communicating to one another. I couldn't understand it like I could in the dream, but that may be because I don't have the Master Emerald now like in the dream. I had no special powers here; there wasn't anything special about me as far as I could tell. So, then, what was that voice I heard right before the attack back in cafeteria? What was there to give me the warning, or maybe, who?

Back to the robots, though, they all acted differently. The one guarding Vulcan was the most docile of them all; it just walked besides the firehog with its red visor pointed directly at him with some side-view camera keeping watch in front of it. I knew because I saw the little camera glass of it in the side of the robot's head. Though, I noticed it seemed to be attempting to mimic what Vulcan was doing; it tried to walk like him, sometimes going out of step, sometimes syncing perfectly with his steps, and others times it just didn't do anything at all.

The second worst was the robot that guarded Gizmo. It just seemed like it was glaring straight at her or me whenever I helped it, like it wanted her to fall over, to mess up just so it could hit her again. It never did, though; even when I failed to catch her and she fell to the ground, I always glared right back at the machine when I bent down to help her back up, daring it to make a move. It never did, and sometimes it just walked past as if nothing had happened at all. Did Eggman purposely make his robots like this, what if they actually grew sentient and betrayed him?

I seemed to have the bad luck of getting the worst robot, which was actually the one that I tased ironically enough. Maybe it remembered what I did to it, and so it made my life hell by constantly pushing me forward to hurry up, or shoving me into the ground sometimes, even when I was carrying Gizmo. Every time I wished to anything above that it wasn't a robot, that it was a living thing, and that I could murder it. Oh, I hated that machine with every fiber of my being, every instinct I had told me to attack, but my mind told me it would be stupid.

Of course, I listened to my head and just let it push me around, I could wait. I would bide my time and strike back when it was right. These robots were stupid; programmed, incapable of changing itself to fit a situation better except from the command of a real, living being. Maybe when I got to Eggman's base I could find a weapon of some sorts and blow this hunk of junk to smithereens. Oh, that would be way too fortunate if I really could, though.

I wish I knew exactly what the Doctor was going to do with us three, though. I knew he would perform experiments on us and if we lived through them, what would happen after that, do we work for him against our wills? Would we even survived the experiments, or get out of them with even our sanity? These questions had no answers present at the moment, and I really wished they did. I did NOT want to become the lab rat of a lunatic madman who had issues with a single blue hedgehog and all of his friends.

But, this also brought one horrible fact to my mind; this was my fault, and I had come to terms with that thought during this death march. Of course, if we continued much farther, we would die, I was sure of it. And that made the fact so much worse; if I hadn't told Gizmo to go see that robot, we wouldn't be in this mess. If I had just told her to search the rooms like she would have afterwards, we would still be free, not walking. Which, by the way, held a whole new meaning to me now; I hated walking now, running was so much better.

_Words that would make Sonic proud, I bet,_ I thought grudgingly. Would we have been better off under the rule of Eggman? Maybe he could have been a good man, but his trying to take over by force made it so others retaliated and destroyed every robot he used, and foiled every plan he had made. The top of his enemy list, as I was sure, was Sonic the Hedgehog himself, the arch nemesis of the fat man from nearly the very beginning. Which also made me wonder; where was he now? I thought he was supposed to be protecting us. _So much for that,_ I thought.

I didn't really want to think of that blue hedgehog at this point, though. It was the conflict between them that made things like this in the first place, and forced thousands of students into being the prisoners of the man. Why did this happen to us, why were we given the bad fate? These dark thoughts weren't really good for me anymore; they just seemed to be getting into my head on their own though. I blame the robots, mine especially. It was an asshole.

I sighed quietly as I heard Gizmo squeak as she tripped again. I stopped in my tracks and I reach out quickly and caught her arm, holding her while she steadied herself. "Thank you," she muttered, just loud enough for me to ear. I had the suspicion that Vulcan had heard as well, however, as I caught the movement of his ear twitching out of the corner of my eye.

"No problem," I replied equally. I glared at the robot that had been walking beside Gizmo, but it simply walked past her. I nodded and released her, stepping back, but was roughly shoved sideways. I fell, my chin connecting with the ground painfully. I let out a long groan; how much more abuse was I going to have to take, or rather, how much more **could** I take? I didn't bother getting back up for a few seconds, that's when I felt the robots arm close around my skinny stomach and hoist me up, shoving me forward once more when I was on my feet. I stumbled, but kept my balance and started walking once again.

This just seemed to be a dreary life I was living now. Did I do something wrong to deserve this? Did WE do something wrong to warrant being taken prisoner by abusive (or at least in my case) robots? I kept myself carefully at Gizmo's side, just staring blankly ahead. It wasn't like there was anything else I could do. If I talked, I was never answered back. If I stopped, I got thrown on to the ground, and either I got back up myself or the robot picked me up again, and I continued walking. Just walking, walking, walking, and walking...

I was bored out of my skull. How much time has passed since we left the school actually? I only had rough measurements right now. "How long has it been?" I asked tiredly.

Surprisingly, Vulcan answered. "Probably 2 days at least by now. Just keep walking Pale, there isn't much else we can do at this point." I had to agree with him.

I felt something poke my arm and I looked down at Gizmo. She had a pleading look on her face. "Pale, could you, um, carry me again?" She asked shyly. I blinked, nodding and stopping. However, I predicted my robot trying to do something and turned around just in time to dodge a hand coming my way. I sidestepped it, rage suddenly coming to the surface of my mind, wiping out any other thoughts I had, and sent my foot flying into the bots side as hard as I could.

The robot went flying a few feet away, which surprised my greatly, considering my current condition. However, my foot had a dull, painful throbbing in it now. Grunting in satisfaction, I got down on one knee and ushered for Gizmo to climb on me back, which she did, securing her arms tightly around my neck, and I placed my hands under her knees, adjusting her on my back slightly and standing up. I didn't even bother looking back at the robot, though I did hear it make quite the scuffle getting back up after my kick.

"Thank you, Bled," Gizmo breathed into my ear. I grunted again in acknowledgement; the rage before hadn't quite left me just yet and I didn't want to accidentally say something bad to her that I wouldn't actually mean. That could be very bad.

I looked up to see Vulcan staring at me, the ghost of a smile on his face. That made me feel just a little bit better, and I stood up straighter, my head held a little higher, a smile coming on my face as well. The little ferret rested her head on my shoulder, leaning sagging against me. I could tell she was falling asleep, so I tried to walk with as little bumps as possible. It was a little hard considering we were in the middle of a jungle on a dirt road. Sticks and rocks littered it, but I simply coped with the environment and just continued onward.

What surprised me the most out of that short ordeal was the fact that the robot didn't even attempt to retaliate. In fact, it didn't try against at all, just kept a distance behind me now. Maybe my first thoughts about these robots were wrong, maybe they actually did act like real living things. Maybe they actually learned, but could you really program an entire personality in a single robot? Or were they programmed to create their own? Were they preset?

However, the robots stopped, and so we did as well, Gizmo's robot, which was directly in front of me, turned around suddenly, facing us. "Message from Doctor Eggman," it said in a male, robotic voice. "Receiving message ..." It said again, and then suddenly a light flew out of it, hitting the ground, and I could see the holographic image of a tall, fat man. He wore a red coat with yellow buttons, black pants, white gloves, and goggles on his head, had a big ugly mustache, and was bald. He didn't look very happy at all.

"Where in the hell of Mobius are you three?" He asked gruffly, looking at each and every one of us, seeming slightly surprised when his eyes were placed on me. I didn't really know how he could see us, but I didn't exactly care at the moment.

"Oh, just being killed slowly by your robots. They've been marching us for 2 days, what took you so long?" I asked, in the fakest form of respect I could possibly make up, it sounding mostly mocking. "I thought you wanted us alive."

Eggman's left eye twitched, like sometimes mine did when I was annoyed. "I do want you rodents alive, but apparently my robots have been misinformed on my commands. Now, have you three had anything to eat or drink for these last two days, or for that matter, any rest at all? You're no good to me run ragged."

I shook my head. "Nope, not a single drop of water, crumb of food, or a single minute of rest for me and Vulcan. Gizmo's been able to get some rest occasionally." No point in lying, we were already at his mercy. The Doctor groaned.

"Damn those robots, they have some issues with voice commands ..." He said, but cleared his throat. "Robots, you are to stop working these poor children so harshly. I want each of you to take one of them and bring them to the nearest available clean water source and leave them there. Afterwards, you are to go find some food and prepare it appropriately with whatever you find. Then, you are to allow them rest for at least 24 hours before bringing them to me through airlift. Am I clear?"

Each 'bot saluted; how the hell would these robots even cook food? This man clearly thought of everything. "Yes sir." They all said in unison, mechanically. Eggman nodded and disappear, and each robot immediately stepped towards us, our respective ones. Gizmo's grabbed her, and apparently she wasn't asleep and listening, as I saw her eyes wide open, and she appeared slightly disgruntled. Vulcan struggled at first, but eventually gave up. I didn't try, there was no point; if they were taking us to water, I wasn't going to try and deter them.

We arrived at water in a few short moments, and just like the fat man commanded—I believe I'm going to call him Baldy Nosehair, I wonder if that will annoy him—and left immediately, looking for what I assumed was food on land. The three of us ran over to the river and dipped our hands in it, pulling up scoops and drinking greedily. Needless to say, we were doing that for a few moments. When I finally sat back from the river, I looked around.

It was actually a rather beautiful place. Flowing green grass that stretched as far as the eye could see, clear blue skies, a few flowers here and there. I had no idea how we had gotten here so quickly, or what way we even took. I wanted to remember this place, but I wished I knew where 'here' was. I sighed, laying back and splaying my limbs out in the grass, looking up at the beautiful sky above. I ignored the tree and foliage line of the jungle we just left; I did not want to remember it at all.

Vulcan eventually came over and plopped down on his back next to me, crossing one leg over his other and placing his hands behind his head, looking up at the sky with me. Gizmo was on my other side, except she was just sitting in the crisscross-applesauce position, looking up at the sky as well. I couldn't help but feel contented at the moment now; this place calmed my nerves, it gave me a sense of tranquility I didn't know for a while. It gave me hope. I greatly welcomed it.

I could tell the others were feeling the same way, because when I looked to both Gizmo and Vulcan, they had smiles on their faces. I let one grace my own features, and settled back into the grass, happy to finally relax. I ignored it before, but now, I felt almost numb from how tired I was. It was difficult to keep my eyes open, but I fought the urge to sleep, at least for a little while.

"How are you guys feeling right now?" I asked, my voice carrying my exhaustion.

Vulcan breathed a sigh. "Better," he said simply.

"Yeah ... Better," Gizmo responded. She looked back at me. "Why don't you go to sleep, Pale? You haven't had a blink of sleep in two days, while carrying me for nearly half the trip. We'll wake you up if something happens."

I nodded quietly and closed my eyes, sleep instantly swamping me as soon as I had closed my eyes.

_Bled's Dreamscape_

I opened my eyes to still be in the field, but something seemed different. I sat up, looking around. It looked like I didn't sleep very long at all, but I felt completely refreshed. I felt like an entirely different person from the one I had gone to sleep as. Confused, I stood up slowly, and looked down at myself. My body looked completely fine; my sports tape that I had never taken off appeared to be as if I just put it on, the dirt that covered it previously and my blood nonexistent. I reached up to my eye, and felt nothing. The scar wasn't there.

Was I dreaming again? I had to be, because scars just don't disappear like that. I decided to just enjoy this while I could, and went wandering around, exploring this new world. The field of grass seemed to go on forever, but I just followed the river. A smile had come onto my face at some point while I was walking, it was so peaceful here. I didn't want to leave this place, I didn't want to wake up again and find out that everything that had happened, that is within my memory, was actually real. This, right now, felt real.

I wandered away from the river and up a hill, climbing it to the top and looking out over the land. It was just a giant green land of grass with trees every now and then. It was just rolling green hills, and that just looked perfect to me. It looked like perfect harmony. Smiling even more broadly now, I turned around, and came face to face with something large, shiny, and green. I gasped, stumbling backwards away from the thing. That's when I realized what it was; the Master Emerald from my previous dream.

What is it doing here in this dream? Why was I dreaming about it again? I knew this thing was attached to me somehow, that my fate was interconnected with it by this point; I wouldn't be so focused on it if it wasn't. An object of limitless power ... Power bestowed upon me in my previous dream back in my room. I stepped up to the object, looking it, my reflection visible on its many facet surfaces, each one as perfectly cut as the last.

_Bled Whitecrow,_ a booming voice said in my mind. That one voice sent shivers throughout my being; it was so powerful, so deep, and resonated within the very center of my being it seemed. Who's there?

_You've been of great interest to me lately, young one. _

Why?

_'Why' indeed ... You are different from the rest. _

How?

_It is hard to pinpoint exactly where, or how, but you have the aura about you ... Things are happening in your life for a reason. Soon, you will meet me in person, in the real world, and hopefully then you will realize why you are different, because I cannot tell you._

Why couldn't you have chosen someone else? Why didn't you choose someone that already was a hero, like Sonic the Hedgehog?

_ His fate is already bound, and it is bound to the Chaos Emeralds. Seek him out, Bled the Crow; seek out those who bear the power of Chaos. _

You just picked me from a metaphorical hat, didn't you?

_While you are not my first choice of person, you are my second. However, either way, you will do just fine. You and I are bound together already, Bled the Crow, and I do not believe you will disappoint me when we are finally one._

'When we are finally one'? Do you know what is going to happen, Master Emerald?

_ Yes, unfortunately, it will cause you some amount of pain as well. Do not worry, you will live, and you will be remembered as the one of the legendary 'Masters of the Emerald', just as your father was before you._

I was shocked, to say the least. I reached out and placed my hands on the surface of this great object, looking imploringly into it. My father, you know my father? What happened to him? Where did he go? Is he alive still?

The Master Emerald seemed to chuckle, its voice reverberating within my head. _Answers will come in due time, young one. But, to answer at least two of your questions, I did know your father, very well in fact. However, sadly, I hate to inform you that he has passed away recently._

That news hit me hard. However, no tears came to my eyes, no sadness, just the regret that I never got to know my father before he had been taken from me. _Do not worry, child, he is in a better place now,_ the Master Emerald rumbled. _I must ask you to focus on the present now, do not worry about the past. I promise you may be able to see your father when you are ready. For now, I believe it is time for you to wake up; those robots of Eggman's have gotten the food and are almost done preparing it. Be on your guard still, Eggman plans to use you for his own selfish gain._

Wait ... You can't just leave without telling me more! Tell me what's going on!

_I will be glad to inform you when you have finally arrived. Wake up, Bled..._

Despite what I wanted, I felt myself in my dream state growing sleepy. My hands slipped away from the Master Emeralds surface, and it seemed to be getting farther away from my outstretched fingertips, growing smaller and smaller as the distanced between us lengthened. My eyes began to drift closed against my will, and I wanted to sleep so badly, but I wanted answers. No, I needed answers, they were all there, with that green rock, but I couldn't get to them. They were too far away. Eventually, my eyes shut, and I was suddenly falling. Falling into nothingness, into the darkness...

_Real world_

I sat up with a start, looking around. The previous light from the day was gone, the land turned red from the fading beams of the sun. I stood up quite suddenly, making my way over to the surface of the water and looking down into it. I was back in the waking world; my sports tape ashen gray, blood smeared all across my right arm. My fur was ragged, patchy, tangled, looking mangled, my quills split at the ends, the dark spikey things along either side of them appearing even darker. My eyes also appeared to have lost any luster; bloodshot in my left eye appeared fine, though, only in my right, normal eye.

The green iris annoyed me, it only reminded me of the dream I just had, of the Master Emerald and its refusal to give me answers until the 'time was right'. What a load of rubbish, what would the difference be between telling right then, or telling me later? I couldn't conceive any, but it that damn oversized gems great conscience, of its great wisdom that I assumed it must have; it probably knew something I didn't, which of course, it did. The Master Emerald knew everything, and apparently knew me without even seeing it besides in my dreams.

Annoyed, I splashed the water with my hand, disturbing the image that was there. Or, well, more than it already was, considering the bumpy bottom of the river I could see, and the fact that the water was moving by, though it appeared slow to me, a gentle movement. I stared for a few moments longer, but as I was about to turn away, I saw something; a glow in the water, reaching up to the surface and my eyes. White, and narrowing my eyes, I could see it was a gem of sorts, a Chaos Emerald?

I didn't even think about it; I just jumped straight into the river. It was cold, more than I expected, and it robbed the breath from me in an instant. I swam towards the bottom, arms and legs churning as best they could, taking me to the white light. Once I was in arms reach, I closed my hand around the shining thing and pulled it free from the bed of the river. I resurfaced moments later, coughing, swam to back to the bank. Someone grabbed my arm and hauled me back up onto dry land; I kept the object clutched close to my chest.

"What the hell were you even doing, jumping into the river like that?" I heard Vulcan say. I coughed, shaking my head, and rolled over, sitting up. I looked down at the object; obviously a gem, similar in shape to the Master Emerald. This HAD to be a Chaos Emerald, but how lucky did I have to be to find it here? As I held it, energy seemed to fill me, the gem glowing softly. I closed my eyes, letting it fill me up.

"Dude, what is happening to you? You're like ... Everything about you seems to be fixing." Vulcan said in a shocked voice. I didn't respond to him, and eventually, the Chaos Emerald turned entirely white until I couldn't tell the difference between its facets and seemed to dissipate into the wind. What a strange experience, though I could somehow tell that the emerald had not left me; I could feel a strange presence in the air around me. It was still here, and it was watching, that much I knew.

"I guess I just needed a dip was all," I said finally, standing up. I felt completely dry, probably the Chaos Emerald's doing. "So, is the food done yet?"

He didn't answer at first, just staring dumbly at me before blinking, nodding his head. "Uh, yeah, it's done ... I came to tell you that, only to see you jump into the river." He slowly motioned with his hand for me to follow, turning and walking towards what I could see was a fire pit. "Come on." I followed him, feeling much happier with the finding of the Chaos Emerald.

I don't remember much of what happened after that. The robots simply stood idly by as Gizmo, Vulcan and I talked and laughed around the fire, finally enjoying ourselves once more. Eventually, we fell asleep once again and woke up to the robots ushering us off once again. Except, this time, they grabbed us and straight flying, some jetpacks activating on them. I didn't really mind, being a bird, I was naturally inclined to loving the sky. Except, after an hour, what I saw was awful; a thick column of black smoke, and when I followed the trail of where it came from, a dark fortress lay, taunting.

We soon touched down at the front entrance of the place, where I could see a giant red face on the even bigger gates. I knew this was it; this was the place of Doctor Eggman, evil mastermind extraordinaire. There was no running away now, there was nowhere to run anyways, we would be found eventually, and captured once again if we even managed to escape. The doors slowly opened inwards, and with fear in my heart, I was the first to start walking in, Vulcan and Gizmo hesitantly following me.

I could tell the two had chosen me the leader of this group by now. I didn't really enjoy it, but I just hoped that I wouldn't let them down now.


End file.
